There are often times that I read a Dilbert strip and look over my shoulder to try to catch Scott Adams watching me... this might be the creepiest of those experiences. It does make me a little sad though, I was hoping the rest of the world wasn't as screwed up as my little section.

Pet bear kills Pennsylvania woman. I think the neighbor should be charged for shooting the bear. Why on earth can you get a permit to keep lions, and tigers, and bears (oh my) at your house in Pennsylvania? They should have a fake permit application, and then just shoot you when you come to apply and save some future little kid from getting mauled by your "pet." Nothing is idiot proof, nature always invents a better idiot.

It's true, they didn't interfere with the players, they just let the players interfere with each other to the level that approaches inappropriate amounts of touching in several of the more conservative states in the Union. However, I agree 100%, Henrik Zetterburg is a very skilled goaltender player. Oh wait, sorry I got Zetterburg and Scuderi confused there for a minute. Scuderi made several great, legal, plays in the crease to save the Penguins season. Zetterburg made several questionable, blatantly illegal plays in the crease to facilitate Detroit making it one win away from another Cup, all with Billy MC standing there staring right at him. I think one of the biggest off-season stories for the Wings will be who's going to get the start in goal next year. Osgood obviously has the resume, but Zetterburg apparently can't contain his desire to grab and cover the puck in the crease. McCreary is the Dick Cheney of hockey. Fuck everything up and then come out later and talk about how you think you did a great job and how doing anything different would mean certain doom.

I know that he probably had orders from on high to call the games differently, but if it's your last Finals you owe it to yourself to call it by the book, it's not like there can be any blow back. At the very least don't come out afterward and continue to be the league mouthpiece. Can the refs get fined for criticizing the officiating? When the coaches do it they can be fined seemingly any amount, though $10,000 seems a popular number. Yet when a player gets fined for something that was illegal on the ice but short of a suspension their fine is capped at $2,500. Way to go NHL, you fine the coaches more for saying what everyone is already thinking, than you do the players for breaking the rules in such a blatant and dangerous fashion that a penalty alone is not enough punishment. Mr. Bettman has obviously never heard this quote before, so I'll present it to him here:

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Every time a player or coach criticizes the officials the NHL should donate $100 of it's money to a charity of the officials choosing. The number of complaints about the officiating should be tracked as an official statistic by the league, and the leader at the end of the year should be given the "Matt Dragon Award" represented by a giant middle finger attached to an arm wearing an orange arm band:

The most criticized official would win the "Bill McCreary Award" which would just be a giant mustache also wearing an orange arm band:

Despite the NHL Rulebook only having 87 rules, there are actually 89 rules that govern an NHL game. The two missing from the book are:
Rule 88. Henrik Zetterberg is allowed to freeze the puck in the crease whenever he wants to.
Just to make this as clear as possible, they also rewrote Rule 67.4:
Penalty Shot - If a player except Henrik Zetterberg, and except a goalkeeper, while play is in progress, falls on the puck, holds the puck, picks up the puck, or gathers the puck into his body or hands from the ice in the goal crease area, the play shall be stopped immediately and a penalty shot shall be awarded to the non-offending team.
Rule 89. When the Detroit Red Wings have an empty net and an opposing player has a clear cut break away and is fouled, there is no automatic goal, because we love the Red Wings, they're so dreamy
Again, just to remove any ambiguity they rewrote Rule 57.4:
Awarded Goal - If, when the opposing goalkeeper, except if he plays for the Red Wings, has been removed from the ice, a player in control of the puck in the neutral or attacking zone is tripped or otherwise fouled with no opposition between him and the opposing goal, thus preventing a reasonable scoring opportunity, the Referee shall immediately stop play and award a goal to the attacking team.

And before all the Detroit fans' heads explode: Yes, the Penguins had too many men on the ice. Yes, it went uncalled. No it does not even begin to compare with the at least 100 uncalled interfereance penalties the Red Wings have gotten away with. No it does not even remotely cancel out the fact that almost every goal in Games 1,2 and 3 went in due to pure dumb luck or because of an uncalled penalty. Yes it's not fair that the refs don't call blatant, incredibly obvious penalties that any idiot with a working set of eyes could clearly see. Welcome to my fucking world, grab a seat it's gonna be a long series for you guys.

First I doubt any of you will be willing to respond to this email and have a reasoned, intelligent conversation about your decision and the needless bad PR you're now raining down upon yourselves but I'd welcome the one in a million chance it would happen.

I'd like to know if any of you would setup up and take credit for the decision to ban the Penguins from showing the NBC feed for the Stanley Cup Final games. I really can't understand why any company which exists to make money would possibly want to limit the audience that it's commercials reach. Even if you ignore all of the negative PR, which given the size of the uproar and the ferocity with with you are being vilified is pretty hard to ignore, why would you not want fans to be able to enjoy the game together in a more energetic atmosphere? Even if only a single person in Pittsburgh walked past the Igloo and saw one second of one of your commercials, they might buy the product they saw advertised. Would you decide to broadcast dead air instead of commercials? I mean funny looking hats before horses running in a circle is pretty close to dead air I suppose...

I really don't understand why you would agree to broadcast the NHL and then treat the fans like garbage. Two years ago when you cut away from SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME in an Eastern Conference SERIES CLINCHING game to show the 2 hour PRE-RACE coverage of the Kentucky Derby, it was an awful, awful decision, yet at least that probably makes financial sense given the relative popularity of horses running in a circle and funny hats. SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME in a SERIES CLINCHING GAME, and you picked STUPID HATS and probably made millions of dollars in the process. I just can't fathom how getting thousands of people angry at you could possibly benefit you, your brand, or the brands who buy your commercial time. Hockey fans everywhere are left wondering what ridiculous stunt you're going to pull next when their team's game on the line. You have just as much vested interest in the NHL on NBC getting good ratings, why wouldn't you welcome any and all who wanted to partake? Maybe if you got the NHL to make the players wear stupid hats....